Ferdinand Tönnies on Public Opinion
Ferdinand Tönnies on Public Opinion

Author: Ferdinand Tönnies

Publisher: Critical Media Studies: Instit

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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This text presents selections from Ferdinand Tonnies "Kritik der offentlichen Meining (Critique of Public Opinion)". The editors give a brief history of public opinion and provide the translation and original analyses of Tonnies work, situating it theoretically and historically.

A Theory of Public Opinion
A Theory of Public Opinion

Author: Francis Wilson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1351534424

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This book traces the emergence of the ideas and institutions that evolved to give people mastery over their own destiny through the force of public opinion. The Greek belief in citizen participation is shown as the ground upon which the idea of public opinion began and grew. For Wilson, public opinion is an "orderly force," contributing to social and political life. Wilson appraises the influence of modern psychology and the slow appearance of methodologies that would enable people not only to measure the opinions of others, but to mold them as well. He examines the relation of the theory of public opinion to the intellectuals, the middle class, and the various revolutionary and proletarian movements of the modern era. The circumstances in which the individual may refuse to follow the opinions of the experts are succinctly and movingly analyzed. This book is a historical and philosophical evaluation of a concept that has played a decisive part in history, and whose overwhelming force is underestimated. The author's insight brings an understanding that is invaluable at a time when public opinion, the force developed to enable the ruled to restrain their rulers, has become controllable. Attempts to manipulate it are made by those who would impose their will upon their fellow men.

Public Opinion
Public Opinion

Author: Slavko Splichal

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780847691630

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A survey of the historical roots, theoretical foundations and normative claims of 20th-century conceptualizations of public opinion. It examines research strategies such as polling, the "spiral of silence" model, and the role of the media in the formation and expression of public opinion.

Community and Society
Community and Society

Author: Ferdinand Tonnies

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 1351527401

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This extraordinary prescient work by Ferdinand Toennies was written in 1887 for a small coterie of scholars, and over the next fifty years continued to grow in importance and adherents. Its translator into English, Charles P. Loomis, well described it as a volume which pointed back into the Middle Ages and ahead into the future in its attempt to answer the questions: "What are we? Where are we? Whence did we come? Where are we going?" If the questions seem portentous in the extreme, the answers Toennies provides are modest and compelling. Every major field from sociology, to psychology, to anthropology, has found this to be a praiseworthy book. The admirable translation by Professor Loomis did much to transfer praise for the Toennies text from the German to the English-speaking world. Now, outfitted with a brilliant new opening essay by John Samples, the author of a recent full-scale biographical work on Toennies, 'Community and Society' is back in print; a welcome reminder of the glorious past of German social science.

The Anthem Companion to Ferdinand Tönnies
The Anthem Companion to Ferdinand Tönnies

Author: Christopher Adair-Toteff

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2016-06-19

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 1783085428

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The Companion is a collection of articles covering noted German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies' full range of thinking. Topics include Tönnies and the development of sociology, Tönnies on community, on globalization, on gender and the family, and on crime and law. They also include Tönnies’ views on politics, on public opinion as well as on Tönnies as Hobbes scholar and his relation to Georg Simmel. Each of the essays is written in a clear manner and will be understandable to the non-specialist. Each essay is comprehensive and will be useful to the specialist. The Companion is a welcome and significant contribution to our understanding of this noted sociologist and political thinker.

The Illusion of Public Opinion
The Illusion of Public Opinion

Author: George F. Bishop

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780742516458

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In a rigorous critique of public opinion polling in the U.S., George F. Bishop makes the case that a lot of what passes as "public opinion" in mass media today is an illusion, an artifact of measurement created by vague or misleading survey questions presented to respondents who typically construct their opinions on the spot. Using evidence from a wide variety of data sources, Bishop shows that widespread public ignorance and poorly informed opinions are the norm rather than definitive public opinion on key political, social, and cultural issues of the day. The Illusion of Public Opinion presents a number of cautionary tales about how American public opinion has supposedly changed since 9/11, amplified by additional examples on other occasions drawn from the American National Election Studies. Bishop's analysis of the pitfalls of asking survey questions and interpreting poll results leads the reader to a more skeptical appreciation of the art and science of public opinion polling as it is practiced today.